


No Time for Corporals

by amythis



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Time Bending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 06:13:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14688159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis
Summary: It's going to take some time for Radar to get things right.





	No Time for Corporals

**Author's Note:**

> This became head-canon immediately, although I haven't worked out all the details yet.

My mom cried when I left for Korea. "You're so young!" 

"I'm 27."

"Not in 1950 you weren't."

"I'm not going there as a 7-year-old." Not that I was going there as 27. For my purposes, 18 or 19 would do it.

"No, but you're still my baby, Walter. And that's a war!"

"Mom, that's why I'm going. And Dad was younger than this when he started."

"And he died!"

"I'll be careful."

"Careful," she scoffed. "In a war."

She didn't stop me, not that she could've. All Uncle Ed said was "Are we going to win this time?"

"I'll see what I can do." I knew he meant against the Commies, but this is bigger than a little police action.

I packed lightly, just comic books and a teddy bear. I thought they'd make me seem more boyish, just a homesick Iowa farm kid. No one has seemed to notice the comics are from "the future." But I've made other mistakes, ones I've tried to undo without making a bigger mess.

The biggest mistake was at the beginning, a star cluster of mistakes that took me two years to unravel before I could begin again. The Boss wasn't too happy with me but he's patient.

"It takes time to learn Time," he said.

I gave my imagination free rein, coming up with so many quirky characters, throwing them all together in one place. And I stopped caring about if they were authentically early '50s. I was having too much fun. But the whole thing collapsed and I had to start killing some off and sending others back home to their wives.

Did you ever read Mark Twain's "Those Extraordinary Twins"? Even Twain admitted the short story was a mess, but I think one of the funniest things he ever wrote was his commentary on it, and how he had to start throwing characters down a well. So that's sort of what I had to do, and it is easier to get rid of people in wartime.

In Twain's case, he found that he was more interested in the supporting characters, and he got the novel _Pudd'nhead Wilson_ out of them. My case was different. I liked all my characters, but there were too many to control, and they were causing problems with not only each other (I still feel guilty about the humiliation of Hot Lips), but they were somehow making a bigger mess of the Korean War. If I hadn't shut things down, the domino effect would've ruined "the future," too.

The Boss gave me another chance. He let me keep the names and sort of personalities for some of the characters, but I had to change the appearances, which is why Trapper now has curly blond hair instead of a droopy black mustache.

And now I was 29 and passing for 19. I had a grown man's tastes, but had to pretend I was a boy sneaking cigars and alcohol. No one questions it, not even the characters who've established almost complete independence, like this Hawkeye, although he's nothing like his blond, bespectacled predecessor, other than disrespect for authority.

It's been three years. The first year, I still had too many characters, and not enough time for all of them. So I sent off Spearchucker, Ho-Jon, Ugly John, the luscious Lt. Cutler, maybe some others I've forgotten. I can't help adding new ones, like adorable Lt. Kellye, although I keep changing her last name. And I know, I have too many Nurse Ables and Nurse Bakers. It's still a lot to keep track of, along with all the paperwork I do as company clerk.

And sometimes the characters switch things around on me, like the first names of their wives or the ages of their kids. Hawkeye decided he likes being from Maine rather than Vermont, and he's thinking of getting rid of his mother and sister. Hell, I do it, too. One day I told Hot Lips I had a 37-year-old sister! Even minor characters do it, like Dr. Freedman telling me he wanted to be Sidney rather than Milton.

What's weird is, they make these changes, and everyone goes along with them, unquestioningly. Soon even the person contradicting himself or herself doesn't remember earlier versions. It makes me wonder just how much could change without collapsing the project, if it was slowly and subtly.

I didn't expect it to last this long, five years total, three for this phase. The real Korean War ended after three years, and I can't even make up my mind what year we're in from week to week.

And now I've got to sacrifice one of my favorite characters. I have to, it's one of the rules. He said it himself, one of those moments of wisdom the bumbling can't hide. This isn't like when Hawkeye decided to invent and kill off his own pet character. Colonel Blake is a lot realer to me, and all the other people, than Captain Tuttle was, although Tuttle had his own reality. But Blake has to go. I won't throw him down a well, but I can't send him home to Mildred. Or was it Lorraine?


End file.
